


tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature

by hyksieji



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Bittersweet, Character Study, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, Mental Instability, Multi, Pining, Suicidal Ideation, Thematic Breakdowns, Transphobia, please give kurapika a hug xoxo, the current tags/characters are subject to change! indecision is a bitch, you are sexy and look great today ily kings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26606740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyksieji/pseuds/hyksieji
Summary: Emotionally charged hxh ficlets based on small hcs/whatever's going through my head atm. Content warnings in every chapter's notes. Requests (for any character) currently open.I wrote most of these drafts while I was Going Through It™. If you ever want to talk know that I am here for you, and that things do get better.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika & Pairo (Hunter X Hunter), Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 18
Kudos: 18





	1. underestimate your intellect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw//isolationist behavior (but thats kinda. the standard for krpk.) trying out more stylistic writing and came up with this weird mismatched screenplay-ish format!!

With methodological precision, he plays each and every voicemail in his inbox. 

With methodological precision, he deletes every one of them immediately after. 

Leorio is an imbecile, he thinks to himself. Dumb and stupid and unable to take a hint. 

He answers a call once, only one time, and it goes like this—

_SCENE BEGIN._

PALADIKNIGHT: So you finally decided to pick up my calls, eh? 

Kurapika feels puppeted. Riddled with strings and hollow all the way through— he wonders if this is a manipulator's doing, the strange detachment he carries as he responds to Leorio's question. “It was an accident.” His marionette mouth opens and closes with jerky, stilted movements, and it's all he can do to hope that Leorio thinks he's talking to a real person, rather than a hollow facsimile of a living, breathing human being.

PALADIKNIGHT: _(fumes.)_ An accident? What the fuck, Kurapika?

____

____

__His veins are quicksilver his tongue is lead his body is gold his eyes are the ruby red of long dead gods—_ _

_(his eyes are the ugly rose-taupe of sober loss.)_

__“I’m asking you to stop leaving messages. they’re taking up my phone storage.”_ _

PALADIKNIGHT: _(pauses. when his next line begins, he sounds bitter.) _“I guess if that’s how you feel, then I will.”__

Wait— this event wasn’t scripted, this wasn’t supposed to happen _why is this happening—_

PALADIKNIGHT: Call me when you're ready.

_LEORIO hangs up._

_SCENE END. NO REVISIONS ALLOWED._

_(He wonders if Pairo would applaud. He always had a taste for romantic tragedy.)_

His phone doesn’t ring the next day, and when he checks his voicemail again he is greeted with a mocking, empty inbox. It’s human nature, he rationalizes. To leave when you get told to, it’s only rational, it's justified—

and therefore he isn’t upset. For there is nothing to be upset about. Just people doing their thing, people living their own lives. If anything, he should be grateful, for he was the one asking Leorio to stop.

(He left with nothing but burning, righteous anger and returned to 0 missed messages and 0 missed calls and he sank his head into his legs and cried because _you really have given up on me, and I have nobody to blame but myself.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi fans im back ♥ so i decided to loot my notes app for my sexy ios14 layout and found a treasure trove of edgelord poetry because love loses ig. swapped a few names and thematic symbolism and badaboom! now i have hxh angst. uh so i need stimulation and i might actually run out of non-embarrassing poetry soon so if u can drop a request here or thru one of my socials that'd be pretty poggers


	2. day-dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw//intrusive thoughts

You are head over heels for people who will never see you as anything to them. Sometimes a thought or twenty will creep into your head, musings on folklore diseases, sweetheart hanahaki. You smile and wonder if you would grow multiple pairings of flowers in your lungs brilliant wild carnations and peonies thriving in the wasteland of cartilage and pleura. Maybe your loved ones would come to visit you in the hospital, call you a coward for going through the surgery—and then you wouldn’t, out of nothing but sheer spite—would hack up amber and flora every day until you keel over. You’d curse their names under your breath, and a sick green thing would thrash inside of you, unable to comprehend why they were able to get a happy ending (without you).

And oh! How your imagination flourishes in the mesmeric images of self-destruction. sickening thoughts of people at your grave, _We did everything we could—how were we supposed to see his rotten lungs? No we shall not touch his body— imagine what would happen if we desecrated his final memory! Absolutely tragic._ The funeral procession is lengthy and exciting, each (fakey-fake faker) guest disclosing a personal memory of you and them. You laugh and laugh and laugh until your lungs hurt, marveling at how nobody seems to hear you. Maybe they're too fooled by the corpse in the open casket, and you can't begrudge them that— it's truly an amazing replica.

(Why is everyone so happy? You're dead? That deserves the utmost respect, not giggles from children playing sticks under the tables, not proud smiles from every _nen_ teacher you've had—) Does it really matter? You continue to laugh, and your entire body convulses on itself. You are the conductor of this train, and you intend to never stop it from running until there is no more track for it to move on.

Someone new steps up to the podium, and you can't recognize his face. All the features are there, tawny eyes and tanned skin and an aura that makes you hurt all over. Someone else is with him— two other people are with him. You pause your laughter, the sound trickling into cloying silence.

_Killua Zoldyck was my dearest friend. I miss him very much._

You hazard a glance away from the speaker and find that the rest of the audience has disappeared into thin air.

_My big brother was undoubtedly the kindest person I knew. I hope he's found peace._

Opening your eyes, you try to scrub away the remnants of— whatever that was. The light hits your retinas and washes out the world into watercolor shades, immensely different from the gruesome saturation of your rabbit-hole daydream.

As you think about it more (you don't know how you missed it at first), you realize that the scenario in your head wasn't actually a funky fresh train of thought. You'd appreciate it if it never came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still not over her and that's pathetic gonna listen to juice wrld to make me feel better ⛓💯 /j
> 
> i didnt want this to b one of those 'killua loves gon but gon doesn't see him that way' fics but sometimes that is the way the cookie crumbles!! i am sorry for my sins.


	3. love and truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw//derealization, gon freecss strange lil moral compass, corpse imagery

He doesn’t tell them about stumbling through gigantic trees on trembling legs. Ignoring the tsunami of pain that wracked his whole body until he was looking at everything through a tunnel which was only getting smaller and smaller and smaller until it was only a pinprick so very far away. Until he wasn’t himself anymore, and there wasn’t anything surrounding him but darkness. Doesn’t tell them about falling to the dirt and seeing more than feeling his body collide with the ground, and writhing in agony for what felt like seconds or hours or days or weeks or centuries. Doesn’t tell them about feeling like the weight world was crushing his bones to ash, his skin stretched too thin over his muscles, muscles were no more than thin strands of rice-paper, capable of collapsing under mere thought.

He doesn’t tell them about the white-hot fire that had raged and roared in his head like a monster with barbed claws and serrated fangs and an onslaught of nothing and yet everything that left him forgetting- himself, where he was, who he was, how to breathe, how to live. 

He doesn’t tell them about watching the sun come up with unseeing eyes. The crows the soprano to the ragged chorus of his heaving chest. He doesn't tell them about blinking and then suddenly watching the trees shadowed with the endless black of the night and feeling a pulsating emptiness where his thoughts, his words, his being used to be.

He doesn’t tell them about the vortex that had opened its mouth and swallowed him whole, doesn’t tell them about how he’d hallucinated, lost himself within thoughts that weren’t really thoughts but images but also just delusions of grandeur. Doesn’t tell them about how he’d felt like the world had nibbled at him and loved the sweet honey that had coated his skin and proceeded to rip into him, only to realize just how bitter and vile he truly tasted on the inside, chewing him up and spitting him right back out into the face of the void, pulling at his hands and his eyes and his soul as it devoured anything he may have ever been.

He doesn’t tell them anything. Killua and Leorio try to prod for answers from him, and he stays stubbornly silent. Kurapika watches him with a worry that they both know would be hypocritical to state. It doesn't really matter. His thoughts are still clenched tight to his bosom.

And perhaps he will tell them; perhaps someday in the inevitable future, if he finds escaping death once again long enough to see an (era? a world?) that is not laden with violence, perhaps someday he’ll tell them, sitting comfortably among the rooms of a palace that had once been haunted by his own wails- about all of the filigreed serpents feasting on his corpse. About an anger that scares him down to his very bones, and in this ideal world they accept him for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u slander gon's character, expect ur kneecaps to be GON in the morning.
> 
> ill probably delete this one soon xx it reads too choppy


	4. salutary neglect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this doesn't rly fit the rest of the work but preview of a larger leopika fic im drafting IM ACTUALLY REALLY EXCITED FOR THIS AHHH idk how to summarize o shit
> 
> kurapika is like a sexy angry lit major who ends up making a deal with the devil/minor demon (I'm currently thinking. illumi. mostly because having chrollo wouldn't make sense and i don't like hisoka very much) for revenge 
> 
> leorio is ALSO sexy and pika goes *swoon,* which comes to a terrible laughing point in the Deal with the Devil and/or minor demon.
> 
> please offer advice/ideas kings i thrive off social validation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my spanish 3 preterite/imperfect test: should you use fuimos, fueron, or fui-
> 
> me under my breath, nervously sweating: if he call, I press ignore- I'm overseas in bora bora (bye!) flo milli shit, they know they ball but I ain't in the league, I'm makin' M's, I ain't got no time to make no enemies-

_**Salutary Neglect** _

_**Definition:** Policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws._

_In American history, salutary neglect was the British Crown policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, especially trade laws, as long as British colonies remained loyal to the government of, and contributed to the economic growth of their parent country, England, in the 18th century. Up to the end of the 17th century, mercantile ideas were gaining force in England and giving general shape to trade policy through a series of Navigation Acts._

_**Related ideas include:** Mercantilism, The French and Indian War, APUSH textbooks for sale, why colonization will never, and can never be justified; all my homies hate the long-lasting effects of colonization that last to this very day— _

He meets Leorio on his first day on-campus, Leorio’s brash presence making itself known to every student in class. He’s tall, Leorio, but clumsy, all gangly limbs, and by the end of the day, while everyone groans and mutters under their breath about class, Leorio makes it a point to attempt to commiserate with anyone who will listen- including the history professor, seated at the front of the room with a heavy frown and a heavier cup of coffee.

‘Meets’ is a loose term, here. Everyone in class knows who Leorio is, and he is no exception. But wherein everyone in class regards him with a sleepy sort of amusement to positive affirmation, Kurapika has better things to do.

(Better things, including stopping by the cemetery once every day— dropping off vibrant, crimson dipped flowers bi-weekly. He doesn't know the name of the flowers. They were his mother’s favorites.)

Kurapika meets Leorio properly a week into the school year, his tongue sharpened exceptionally wicked that day. Pairo had always told him that it’d get him into trouble, that he’d mess with the wrong people someday, but Pairo is six feet below the ground.

“Have you no respect for anything?” his chest heaves with an unspoken hurt, and Leorio turns from the front of the room, where he’s acting out a fucking mockery of a Kurtan dance. His movements are clearly meant to be exaggerated, and a part of Kurapika knows that he meant no harm in what he was doing, but the snarling, righteous side of him burns with unrestrained fury at the sight.

“Have you no respect for anything?” he repeats, and Leorio almost seems cowed for two fifths of a second, before jutting his chin out and widening his stance.  
“And what if I don’t?” and that remark does it, so in true form he marches up to the front and center of the room, looks Leorio straight in the eye, and decks him straight in the jaw, hard.

Leorio falls over immediately, an unstable tower collapsing under a strong wind.

The next day, they both are made to stay after hours in class, with the instructions to try and sluice through whatever bad blood they had. The professor had taken one look at them and mumbled something under her breath about not being paid enough for this shit, and promptly left the room with instructions to not fuck shit up too much.

Leorio’s face takes on a sour scowl, looking away from Kurapika with too much emphasis to be genuine. He decides to play along— he has nothing to apologize for, and nothing to say to Leorio. 

The silence stretches to an uncomfortable amount of time, and Leorio breaks after the first announcement for a student to go to the main hall.

“I’m sorry, okay? I know that what I did was wrong and insensitive and on second thought was one of the dumbest things I could do, mocking a dead culture,” he’s actually going to lose it, his culture is decisively not dead, he’s still kicking, “but you didn’t have to sock me in the face because of that? Doesn’t that seem kind of… I dunno, excessive?”

“Excessive?” he’s snarling now, eyes burning with ravenous anger. “Do you really think mocking a culture doesn’t deserve retaliation?”

Leorio drops his gaze to stare at his loafers (ridiculously large, did he have to custom order in that size?) and droops down, almost like a scolded puppy.

“No… it was really wrong of me, and I promise to never pull a stunt like that again. That being said,” his eyes glint, “you have to promise me that you won’t punch me for anything less than a transgression to any cultural/religous group, okay?” and he can’t help it, looking at dumb little spectacles slide down their bearer’s nose as he attempts to look haughty and righteous— he bursts out into laughter. Leorio looks stunned, before going bright red and crossing his arms with a pout. “What’re you laughing at?”

“Forgive me,” he begins, his demeanor shifting of that of a hissing basilisk to a mild-mannered, sweet thing. “Can you actually see out of those?” Leorio looks confused, before seeming to realize that he just jabbed at his glasses (can they even be considered glasses?), and puffing up like a threatened rooster.

“I will have you know that these are the finest spectacles on the market. Not any of the cheap shit you see in infommericals.”  
“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Wh- no i’m not?” he leans in, uncomfortably close, so that Kurapika can see the small smear of something on his lower lip. Nutella, maybe, or some obscure brand of chocolate. 

“You know, you’re kinda annoying.”

He sputters, because Leorio says that with nothing short of sheer delight. “No I am not!”

“Uh-huh, totally, whatever makes you feel better. Did you know your way of speaking is weird too? Way too formal for a normal person in a history class.”

“Would you shut up?” his face betrays him by going bright, ugly carmine, and Leorio grins.

“I think I’ll befriend you. Make you attractive to the ladies and all, y’here me?”

“Oh? Why are you the expert on the ladies you think any ladies would like you. Good goddess, you’d have to pull of a deal with a devil for one of them to even look at you.” at the time he truly doesn’t sense the irony, truly forgets to put his literature major glasses on and see a play worthy of Shakespeare begin to form, but as Leorio rests his head on his arms and waxes poetic about any and every pretty girl who might’ve had a crush on him, hedoesn’t remember that tragedy and romance are vain, selfish, insecure lovers, always following one another.

He doesn’t remember his mother's warnings of the devil’s voyeuristic tendencies, of demons in the walls watching your every move, waiting for a loose brick in the structure of the human psyche. 

He doesn’t remember that the devil takes liking to seeds of vengeance, adores them with the entirety of their unholy being, waters them with the careful hand of the damned.

(he knows that the future has the potential to tear him to little, pretty shreds.)

(He knows he won't be going down without a fight.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so bad at foreshadowing goodbye...... 
> 
> this was supposed to be a funny short thing in which i would go 'fuck apush all my homies hate apush' but then i realized that i like Cool and Sexy things which happen to include sexy gruesome imagery which then led me to think about tragic imagery which then led me to think about uh. demonic possession. and vengeance quests.


	5. looked over it and I ached

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw// unhealthy relationships
> 
> title taken from mitski's strawberry blonde <3

you held me flat against the floor and I bled metal-warm oil over old, verdant carpet.

you pushed the blade in deeper; I remained still

(until your command, at least, for I was your most dedicated disciple, you have to realize that.)

you leaned back up— you were pleased with your handiwork,

satisfied with the little show I starred in. 

you retrieved your sword. 

(armageddon, you had named it. christened it under the light of a full moon and over a dead lake and a shattered beer bottle and three emptied packs of mint oreos. i remember watching you with mercury eyes, ready to stone you at any moment. i wonder if you were self-aware, living embodiment of a poisoned cornucopia.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update: i got a 6/15


	6. charred earth for the losers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuroro lucilfer can (probably) see souls. 
> 
> cw//self-hatred, extremely mild body horror (soul horror?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wtf i cannot write this month *rewatches kamisama kiss again and attempts to understand arcsin graphs instead*

Surprisingly, the ability wasn’t stolen. 

It was wholly his, and Kuroro’d be a liar if he said that the knowledge didn’t strike some uncomfortable chord in him. Maybe the habit came with Meteor City; names already written into book covers, hand-me-down clothing, and worn toys. 

Desert hellscapes did something to you. Sand got inbetween the kinks of your very heart.

Before the Phantom Troupe had peaked, the very first member he had ever met was Uvogin, and it was almost a little too much to bear. Rows of crushing teeth lining his footsteps, bravery and brutality spun into little webs adorning the enamel. It was ugly, grotesque and malformed and undernourished and—

Bright. Bruised, golden, and glorious, and Kuroro wanted, more than he’d ever wanted before, the cheap rhinestones scavenged from the mines paling in comparison.

So he looked for it. Found it in each and every one of his spiders, the way Pakunoda bled oil in the morning and the way Machi stitched herself together in the afternoons. Found it in the way Phink’s ox-horns glinted under duress, the shining metal bolts at Shalnark’s every joint. Franklins miniature ocean (steady, winds never growing large enough to destroy the little boat sailing in it), the hyperhardened keratin nails that Nobunaga wore proudly, the dainty little flowers growing around Shizuku.

Feitan’s shattered sun became literal in the stardust swaying around him, Kortopi’s dome-like clouds gaseous and pretty, seeming to slightly reflect the colors of whoever was around them. Bonolenov’s spoke of tragedy, of anger and loss and burned homes. 

Hisoka. Fingers clench for a fraction of a second— the motherfucker is still alive, making a mockery of both death and Kuroro himself.

(he’d been suprisingly poetic, shattered glass sticking to the hearts of whomever had the misfortune to get near him. All the grace of a god-killer, and a reputation along it to boot. He won’t admit it, but It almost made up for his ugly face.)

The Zoldycks. All classical dread and urchin shells.

Silva and Zeno were beautiful, in an archaic sort of way; scar tissue smoothing out into flat expanses of ice and electricity.

Illumi Zoldyck was ugly. A little too-inhuman, the perfect symmetry of his nature taking form in grotesque onyx horns.

Kalluto— Kuroro’s lips hike upward. He’d always liked children. And Kalluto is so sweet, paper stars and foil cranes dripping from the edges of their kimono. He’s picked one or two up; the craftsmanship was beautiful, kissed on the wings by Aphrodite herself. He’s only known Kalluto Zoldyck for a year now, but if anything happened to them he’d kill all of the people on this earth and then himself.

The white haired boy bled where he walked, achilles heel wailing for rest. Feather-light footsteps carrying the weight of dead cities and citadels.

His companion? A sweet boy, really, a hunger to match his own written into callused palms and ugly green outfit. Like Uvogin, teeth lined his shadow; only these were meant to tear into flesh, instead of crushing whatever unfortunate soul managed to find their way into them. 

The final two— the chain users companions. 

The Kurta. Kuroro looked out of the cathedral window, towards the moon. Maybe it was the locking of his nen that made him unable to see it, but no matter how hard he looked at them, he could see nothing. 

With long, dainty fingers, he raised a wineglass up to the sky. A requiem for Uvogin (and Pakunoda and Shalnark and Kortopi and all the spiders of the past), in part. Mostly, it was for the dramatic irony. 

The only other soul he’s never managed to see was his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello h-h-hiiiii i know it’s been like half a month since i’ve written anything writers block hit me hard and i have nothing to show as the fruits of my labor...... yet. ig i’m looking for a beta bc reading my own writing is exhausting i’m halfway through outlining the first three chapters of the college/demon fic as well as procrastinating on every other project i’ve thought of it’s a hard life for ao3 user lackdaisicality 
> 
> anyways hmu if u wanna talk! currently most active on insta @cvpidstorm other socials r in my carrd


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